


Just Like Heaven

by theinksplotch



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: (kinda), Allura is a goddess(literally), Bilingual Lance (Voltron), Bisexual Lance (Voltron), Character Turned Into a Ghost, Cuban Lance (Voltron), Gay Disaster Keith (Voltron), Ghost Shenanigans, Keith & Shiro (Voltron) are Half-Siblings, Keith (Voltron) is Bad at Feelings, M/M, Mystery, its 2005, its MY self-indulgent klance fic and I get to choose the time period
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:20:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26963581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theinksplotch/pseuds/theinksplotch
Summary: He looks,out of place, Keith thinks, frowning at the boy. A smudge of color in the dull, gray streets of New York during the winter—his skin is sun-kissed and caramel-colored and he’s wearing a thin windbreaker over a plain gray hoodie and jeans despite the ferocity of the morning’s wind. His hair is choppy and short, curling around his ears unevenly—and when Keith manages to tear his eyes away from the boy’s round, freckled face, he flickers and goes transparent in his peripheral....What?
Relationships: Hunk & Keith (Voltron), Keith & Pidge | Katie Holt, Keith & Shiro (Voltron), Keith/Lance (Voltron)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 20





	1. prologue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The grass is soft against his skin, and the color of golden waves beneath a setting sun stain the backs of his eyelids long after he's already woken up.

He knows he's dreaming because he's been here before. 

(In this dream, on this cliff, watching this sunset. Always.)

The sturdy blue house on the grassy cliff's edge, overlooking the ocean. 

The dream remains the same as it always is, so real that sometimes it feels more like a memory than it does anything else. So real that sometimes, Keith wakes up afterward and expects to find salt-water and sand clinging to his bedsheets. 

(But he's never been to the ocean and his sheets are always clean and dry.)

Anyway, 

The sun is setting over the horizon, staining the waves crimson and gold to match with the sky above. The air smells like grass stains and sea salt _—_ the breeze that rustles through Keith's hair is warm against his skin. 

It feels like home; this place that Keith has never been to outside of his dreams. Like yellow light spilling from second-floor windows and something sweet and honeyed baking in the oven. Like warm sand and warm hands and a bunch of other things that have feelings but not names. 

There is a big blue house behind him, a little crooked on its foundation but loved all the same. Keith never turns around to look at it, but he knows its there just as he knows his own name. 

_Strange_.

Sweet, slow music drifts down from an open window like low wisps of smoke. Children shriek with laughter from somewhere behind him. Somebody calls his name, but Keith never turns around to see who it is. 

He sits on the grassy hill and watches the evening bleed into night. 

And then he wakes up. 


	2. an ember in the cold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith is kinda grumpy in the morning whoops

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year!! I've been meaning to update this but I just never got around to it lol

Shiro's already gone to work by the time Keith has stumbled out of his bedroom with sleep-tired eyes and cowlicked hair, but there's lukewarm coffee nearly spilling over the brim of a chipped mug left for him on the kitchen counter, and Keith's hideous winter coat is newly washed and folded over the back of their sofa in the living room. The radio's been left on, humming low with static and stuck halfway between the early morning news station and some overplayed Mariah Carrey song on the next channel over. The kitchen tiles are cold beneath Keith's socked feet, making him curl his toes and grimace at the feeling. The window above the kitchen-sink is fogged up and frosted over. 

It must be snowing today. 

Keith scowls. 

Great. 

If there's anything _—_ _anything_ Keith Kogane despises more than public restrooms, sitcoms with laugh-tracks, and the McDonald's on 31st street ( _don't ask_ ), it's the fucking snow. Absolutely nothing good comes from that shit, he's sure of it. Snowy weather only makes it harder to get through the day _—_ everybody crowds the subways and all the streets and sidewalks are sludgy and slippery beneath the worn soles of his sneakers. It sucks. 

Keith takes a rushed sip of his drink so that it doesn't spill onto the counter when he picks it up, making a face at the taste of cold coffee before he places the mug in their shitty microwave-oven and jabs at the buttons 'til it starts up. He attempts to water the array of Shiro's poor, dead plants that line the windowsill above the kitchen sink (seriously, Keith loves the guy, but Shiro can't even keep a _weed_ alive at this point) and glares out the window until the microwave does its stupidly loud beeping thing _—_ wishing that the snow might somehow stop falling long enough for him to walk his sorry ass to the subway station without freezing said ass right off.

No such luck. 

The small panaderia below usually opens up by the time Keith is ready to leave for school, and he finishes his coffee and shoves on his stiff school uniform while muffled music drifts up through the floorboards and the tiny shared apartment goes sweet and warm with the smell of baking bread. 

He thinks it would be almost cozy if he wasn't all alone. 

He's _—_ he's not, though. Not really, anyway.

(The toothpaste on the bathroom counter's been left unscrewed and the cap is nowhere in sight. The faucet hasn't been shut off all the way _—_ Keith watches slow beads of water gather along the bottom of the spout and fall into the sink with hollow-sounding _plinks_ before he wordlessly cuts it off.) 

Signs that Shiro has been here _—_ Keith clings to them like a security blanket, gathering tiny details in the palms of his cold hands and stringing them together like colorful Christmas lights. The ever-growing number of scuff marks on the bookshelf in the hall that Shiro never fails to bump into when he's heading to bed after a late patrol. Post-it notes covered in his brother's straight, blocky handwriting stuck to the telephone. New plants on the windowsill in the kitchen. A mug of coffee gone-cold sitting on the counter. Reminders that Keith is not alone _—_ reminders that Shiro may be busy, but he's still here. 

(Reminders that even though everybody else is gone, _Shiro_ stuck around.)

It's stupid how comforting it is, to know that. 

It's stupid how much he misses his older brother, despite them sharing an apartment. 

It's stupid.

Keith shakes his head at the thought and glares at himself in the bathroom mirror _—_ toothbrush still hanging out of one side of his mouth and store-brand toothpaste running down his chin.

Keith sighs and straightens the collar of his uniform, tugging half-heartedly at the gaudy orange vest shoved beneath a thick gray blazer with Garrison Academy's decal embroidered on the front of it. The Garrison is a private school just a subway ride away in Forrest Hills, made up of 19th-century red brick tudor-buildings and cold stone stairways. The Garrison offers crazy-hard STEM courses that the public schools can't afford the resources for and hands out big fat scholarships to a select group of low-income students with good test scores every year or so. Which, yeah. That's how Keith got in. His uniform is second hand and his student ID has a special poor-kid pin number on it that gets him free lunch in the cafeteria. Whoo-hoo. 

The harsh fluorescent lighting in the bathroom sends shadows across his face shaped like the choppy ends of his hair. He pushes his bangs away from his forehead, and they fall back into place a second later. His hair is getting too long.

Keith rinses out his mouth and heads for the living room. He doesn't look at his reflection in the mirror on his way out. 

Their apartment's living room is a ghastly blend of mismatched furniture and outdated decor _—_ green shag carpeting and floral-patterned wallpaper that had been there long before Keith and his brother had moved into the old apartment building on 80th street. There's a television set crowded into one of the corners with a VCR and a few tapes stacked on top of it. They've got a couple of DVD's too, but it's a whole thing to hook Keith's PlayStation 2 up to the TV so they remain untouched on the shelf in the hall until someone feels like watching _The Empire Strikes Back_ (Keith) or _50 First Dates_ (Shiro). A large, sagging sofa the color of moss or maybe pine needles, flanked by the recliner that the Flores' downstairs had given to them last fall. Their cordless phone sits on the edge of the coffee table that's cluttered with last night's homework and paperwork from Shiro's precinct. A collection of mismatched lamps placed on shelves and end-tables bathe the room in low orange light. 

There aren't many pictures on the walls _—_ just the few that he and Shiro had managed to hold onto over the years. An ancient polaroid from '89 of Shiro holding Keith as a baby _—_ back when they lived with their mom and Keith's dad on Long Island. An old photo of Keith's dad in his uniform that's gone yellow with age. Keith and Shiro at the docks along the East River, ages 4 and 15. There are a few new ones now _—_ the day Shiro adopted him. His first day of middle school. Shiro's first day on the patrol. There are none of Keith's mother, her face is long-since gone from his memory.

He switches off the still-humming radio that sits on the shelf above the radiator, and the cluttered room is bathed in a muffled silence. Keith glances at his watch and hurries to gather up the rest of his homework from the coffee table so that he can tuck it into his backpack, only pausing when he remembers his coat, laid over the back of the couch and smelling clean and fresh like it isn't quite literally the fucking bane of Keith's existence.

The bright red corduroy monstrosity that Keith is forced to wear every time it gets cold. Shiro found it at the very bottom of a clearance bin in some thrift store back in 1993 and was convinced it was the coolest jacket known to man. He wore it for years before he passed it down second-hand to Keith, and now it terrorizes Keith's wardrobe every winter just because it can. 

Keith shoves the jacket on over his uniform and then proceeds to do the same with the rest of his winter gear—worn gloves and earmuffs and several pairs of socks that always manage to be soaked through by the end of the day no matter how many layers stuffs into his Chucks. 

Once his Discman is tucked safely into one of the large square pockets sewn on the inside of his coat and his backpack is slung over his shoulders and weighing him down like always, Keith is out the door.

His breath is already visible and coming out in little puffs of white air by the time he manages to lock it behind him with stiff fingers and minimal irritation. Did he mention that he hates the snow? The winter?? Any type of weather that involves water falling from the sky??? Yeah. 

The narrow alleyway that separates his apartment and the Flores' bakery from the drugstore next door is empty and covered in a thin layer of grizzled snow, and he has to grip the rail on the cold, metal staircase that leads to the ground so that he doesn't slip and fall to his death or some shit. 

He passes the panaderia's front entrance like he does every morning on his way to school _—_ the little bakery's glass windows are covered in a thin layer of frost and lit up in warm oranges and yellows against the early morning gloom of New York. The name printed on the flapping orange awning above the storefront says _Corina's_ in blocky white letters, illuminated in pinks and yellows and blues beneath the Christmas lights that had been strung up above it. Mrs. Flores smiles at him from behind the register while her three kids wave and make faces at him through the glass. Keith waits for her to look away before flips them all off with a scowl. 

Their giggling is muffled through the front windows, fogging up their faces 'til Keith can hardly make out their features anymore. 

He rolls his eyes, hiding the half-smile that sneaks up on him in the folds of his heavy winter scarf before heading further down the block towards the station. The walk there is shitty at best _—_ Keith's face is numb from the cold and his shitty uniform pants are no help in blocking out the icy wind that whistles through the narrow streets like something very much tangible. Heavy-looking stratus clouds cover the city in a veil of muted, gray light and the horizon is thick with morning fog. He passes the pizza place and the arcade on his way to the station, both closed until lunchtime on the weekdays. The Blockbuster across the street has a plastic light-up reindeer display balanced on top of their awning. The record store's window is lit up with tacky Christmas lights and advertising some sort of sale that ends on January first. 

Keith thinks about the crumpled bills he keeps in the old coffee can on his dresser and wonders if Shiro needs another god-awful '80s-pop mix for his car.

The subway ride to Forest Hills isn't too bad actually. Keith manages to find a seat close to the exit and shoves his headset on under his ear-muffs. The rest of the world goes soft and muffled beneath the sound of his CD mix, like a dream or a party in the next apartment over. Keith traces the smooth surface of his old Discman with the tips of his fingers and watches the CD inside spin through the clear plastic window that covers the top half of the player, feeling at peace for the first time all morning. 

He's out of the station and back onto the muggy streets before he knows it, pulling his coat tighter around him in an attempt to stay warm. It's about a ten-minute walk to the school grounds and the sidewalks outside of Forest Hills station are blissfully empty on cold mornings _—_ well, empty for New York, Keith guesses. He only runs into people once he hits Queens' main street, narrow and crowded with honking cars and bumbling yellow taxis on poorly shoveled roads. Overpriced coffee shops and restaurants line the sidewalks, decorated for Christmas and just barely opening up for the day. Keith sees a Garrison student or two outside of a bakery on the other side of the street. Wind rustles his hair, sends shivers down the back of his neck despite the scarf wrapped tightly around his neck. Snow falls. Keith's music continues to play in his ears. One song ends, and another begins. 

You know, they say things like car accidents always feel like they're happening in slow motion. That time goes nearly still for those few seconds, and the heaviness of it all settles in the air like a thick fog over a city that never sleeps. An entire lifetime in a second, a heartbeat frozen in time.

Yeah well, it wasn't like that for Keith. 

One minute, he's standing on the edge of the curb at the crosswalk, waiting for the little walking sign to tell him that it's safe to cross. The next thing he knows, the collar of his stupid dorky jacket is being yanked on so forcefully that he's swept off his feet and skidding several feet backwards on the cold, wet sidewalk like a fucking hockey puck. There's a loud noise, he thinks, but he doesn't really hear it, doesn't really know what's happening until he hits the ground. 

There's an old yellow taxicab that looks like it had spun out of control and crashed headfirst into the lampost Keith had been standing next to approximately two seconds or a lifetime ago, engine steaming enough to melt the ice around it and alarm blaring loudly out into the early morning haze. The driver is out of the car and cursing at the huge dent in his hood. Keith's portable CD player must've fallen out of his hands, it lies broken on the sidewalk next to one of the taxi's wheels.

There's. A lot to unpack here. But first _—_

Keith is pretty sure he's landed on top of someone. 

He can feel them lying half beneath him on the sidewalk, Keith's upper-body stacked sideways on top of theirs. The hand wrapped tightly around the collar of his jacket loosens with the sound of a relieved sigh.

It's not until Keith scrambles away on limbs that feel like jelly, that he's able to turn around and see who had just quite possibly saved his fucking life.

And its _—_

"A boy," Keith breathes without meaning to, the words coming out of his mouth in a puff of warm air.

He looks,

 _out of place_ , Keith thinks, frowning at the boy. A smudge of color in the dull, gray streets of New York during the winter—his skin is sun-kissed and caramel-colored and he’s wearing a thin windbreaker over a plain gray hoodie and jeans despite the ferocity of the morning’s wind. His hair is choppy and short, curling around his ears unevenly—and when Keith manages to tear his eyes away from the boy’s round, freckled face, he flickers and goes transparent in his peripheral.

...What?

Keith squints at the flickering boy again, idly wondering if he had somehow managed to hit his head in all the commotion. Isn't wonky vision a sign of brain damage? Keith can't recall.

The stranger isn’t looking at him, though. He’s crouched in front of Keith on the wet sidewalk, staring at his own hands like he’s never seen them before. He's not wearing gloves, but his hands are steady and his palms look like they'd be warm if Keith touched them. Not that. He was thinking about it or anything. Wind rips through the busy street like a bat out of hell, whipping Keith’s clothes and hair around. The boy’s choppy curls don’t so much as rustle against it.

How strange...

An empty feeling settles in the pit of Keith's stomach upon looking at the other boy _—_ in the tips of his fingers, too. Something halfway towards fear but not quite there yet. There's something wrong. 

“That—I did that,” the boy says, and his voice comes out in a strangled gasp. He meets Keith’s gaze, finally—his eyes are blue or maybe gray. Not like ice, but more like water—they're clear and earnest when Keith looks into them. But there's something empty in his gaze—something cold and tired and sad. Keith feels a little sick, only dimly aware of sludge melting beneath him from where he sits dazed on the sidewalk. Fuck, what's going on with him?

“I touched you," the stranger says in a surprised whisper.

Huh.

Keith stares at him blankly. “Yeah,” he blinks. “Thanks. I think.”

The boy's ears go pink and his eyes widen like quarters. He scuttles away from Keith on his hands and knees like a crab.

“ _Wha_ —Nononono that's so not what I meant,” he tells Keith urgently. “You don’t understand, I can’t—I haven't—wait a second,” the boy leans towards him, narrowing his eyes. In turn, Keith leans away. “How can you see me?” He points an accusatory finger in Keith’s face. Keith blinks at him in response “Are you dead too? Man, I shoulda known _—_ mullets are _way_ out of style.”

“What the hell are you talking about,” he replies flatly.

“You—“

“Keith! Are you okay?”

He forces his gaze away from the weirdo in front of him to see one of the other Garrison scholarship kids and his little friend stumbling towards him on the sidewalk.

“We saw you almost get hit by that car,” the girl says all in one breath, sliding perfectly round glasses up her freckled nose when they start to slip. Her hair is cut just beneath her chin and curling around the edges of her beanie—she's wearing a boy's uniform beneath her puffy green jacket, Keith realizes suddenly. Ironed khaki pants folded up several times over her sneakers and a thick gray blazer like Keith's, with the Garrison's crest embroidered over the breast pocket. Her bookbag is covered in colorful key-chains. Keith doesn't know her name. The boy—Hunk, Keith vaguely remembers from one or two of his classes—manages to catch up to her and nearly keels over when he stops. He's got one of those backpacks that you can buckle up around your waist like a seatbelt and some sort of robotic science project tucked under one of his arms like a football. The top half of a hot pink DS case covered in Pokemon stickers sticks out the front pocket of his uniform like a sore thumb. The kid's breathing like he's just run a marathon, his round face gone splotchy from the cold.

“Yeah, but then you got yanked back like— _whoosh!—_ “ Hunk makes a wild gesture with his hands, still sounding very much out of breath. The girl with the round glasses grumbles something about an inhaler and starts to rummage through one of the side pockets in Hunk's backpack. He goes on to say, “It was like the wind grabbed you or something—“

“The wind?” Keith mumbles with a frown. He pulls his hands into his lap and realizes that he's shaking. Suddenly, the air feels too heavy and everything feels like it's moving too fast, too fast. “No it was—“ 

He turns back to the blue-eyed boy, but he finds only an empty sidewalk.

He's...gone?

There are no footprints, no indication that he had even been there in the first place. 

Strange...

That odd feeling intensifies with a sick lurch in the pit of his stomach, and the last thing he hears is Hunk frantically calling his name before he slumps over and faints in the middle of the sidewalk. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me, who has lived in a small town in California my whole life: let me write a fic based in a city across the country that i have never been to and know nothing about!
> 
> Anywayyys, please let me know what you think! I haven't written for Keith in a looooong time so i had trouble with his character--how did I do?

**Author's Note:**

> Okay this was v short and but I wanted to have Keith's dream be separate from the actual first chapter ! The chapters after this one will be much longer I promise !!  
> Pls tell me what u think tho lol :D


End file.
